The Case for Copying | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios

Summary

This video script delves into the concept of copying in art, questioning the value of originality and the role of the artist in a world saturated with images. It explores the historical context of artistic imitation, from classical mimesis to modern appropriation art, highlighting works by Manet, Picasso, and Warhol. The script challenges viewers to consider the societal structures that confer authenticity and originality, suggesting that the context of an image is as crucial as its content.

Takeaways

• 📸 Walker Evans' photographs from 1936 are iconic documents of the Great Depression, capturing the essence of the era.
• 🎭 Sherry Levine's 1981 work 'After Walker Evans' raises questions about the nature of originality and the act of copying in art.
• 🤔 The script challenges the viewer to consider what Levine's photographs reveal, beyond mere replication of Evans' work.
• 🎨 Art history is replete with examples of copying, from the earliest Western traditions of mimesis to modern practices of artistic influence and allusion.
• 🖼️ Artists like Raphael, Velasquez, and Picasso have historically copied and reworked existing images to create new meanings and navigate history.
• 👩‍🎨 Appropriation art, emerging in the late 1970s, uses existing images to explore representation and challenge the structures of signification.
• 🎭 The 'Pictures' generation, including artists like Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince, manipulates images to expose the subtexts and cultural associations embedded within them.
• 🏺 Pop Art, with figures like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, reflects the pervasive influence of mass media and consumer culture on artistic production.
• 🔍 Appropriation artists like Martha Rosler and Sherrie Levine question the value attributed to originality and the authority of the artist's signature.
• 🌐 The script suggests that the context of an image is integral to its meaning, and that copies are never identical to the original due to the shifting historical perspectives.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the discussion in the transcript?

The main theme of the discussion is the concept and implications of copying in art, specifically through the lens of appropriation art and its challenge to traditional notions of originality and authorship in the art world.

Who are Walker Evans and Sherry Levine, and how are they connected in the context of the transcript?

Walker Evans was a photographer hired by the Farm Security Administration in 1936 to document the American South during the Great Depression, while Sherry Levine is an artist known for her series 'After Walker Evans,' where she rephotographed Evans' images in 1981. They are connected as the original artist and the appropriator, respectively.

What is the significance of the term 'Appropriation art' as discussed in the transcript?

Appropriation art refers to a movement where artists use existing images or cultural artifacts in their work to challenge the notions of originality and authorship, as well as to comment on the role of images in shaping our perceptions and cultural narratives.

How does the transcript relate the concept of copying in art to the broader history of artistic practices?

The transcript suggests that copying has been a part of artistic practices since antiquity, with artists imitating the world and each other for various reasons such as training, stylistic innovation, or to signal influence. It also connects modern appropriation art to historical practices like allusions, influences, and visual sampling.

What role does the context play in the meaning of copied artworks according to the transcript?

The context is integral to the meaning of copied artworks, as it shifts the interpretation and significance of the piece. A copy is never the same as the original due to its different context, which influences how viewers perceive and understand the artwork.

What is the connection between appropriation art and the concept of the 'Death of the Author' as mentioned in the transcript?

The connection lies in the idea that the author or original creator does not have ultimate authority over the meaning of a work. In appropriation art, the artist's act of copying highlights the multiplicity of interpretations and the web of connotations that exist beyond the creator's intent.

How does the transcript discuss the role of mass media in the development of Pop Art and Appropriation art?

The transcript discusses mass media as a significant influence on Pop Art, where artists like Andy Warhol used images from popular culture and mass-produced objects in their work. In Appropriation art, artists used mass media images to critique and understand how these images inform our psyche and collective life.

What is the significance of the 'Pictures generation' in the context of the transcript?

The 'Pictures generation' refers to a group of artists who, in the 1970s, focused on understanding the structure of signification in pictures. They used existing images to explore how our associations with other similar images influence our perception of art.

How does the transcript address the issue of originality in art?

The transcript challenges the notion of originality in art by discussing how artists throughout history have copied and reworked existing images. It suggests that the idea of an 'original genius' is a myth linked to societal structures of power rather than inherent creativity.

What is the role of the audience in interpreting appropriation art according to the transcript?

The audience plays a crucial role in interpreting appropriation art by engaging with the web of connotations and cultural significance that the copied images carry. Their interpretation is part of the ongoing process of meaning-making in the context of art.

How does the transcript connect the act of copying in art to broader societal structures of power?

The transcript connects copying in art to societal structures of power by suggesting that the valorization of originality and the authority granted to certain artists are linked to historical and cultural biases. It implies that who is considered an 'original genius' is often a result of power dynamics rather than objective measures of creativity.

Outlines

00:00

📸 The Nature of Copying in Art

This paragraph introduces a comparison between photographs by Walker Evans and Sherry Levine, highlighting the act of copying in art. Walker Evans' iconic photographs from the 1930s documented the American South during the Great Depression, whereas Levine's work from 1981 involved reproducing Evans' photographs as a form of artistic expression. The narrator questions the value and meaning behind Levine's photographs, which leads to a broader discussion on the prevalence of copying in recent art. The paragraph ponders whether such practices indicate a lack of creativity or a commentary on the saturation of images in our world. It also raises the question of how to differentiate between copying and the historical use of allusions and influences in art, suggesting that the entire concept of originality in art is being challenged.

05:02

🖼️ The Evolution and Impact of Appropriation Art

The second paragraph delves into the history of copying in art, from the earliest Western traditions of mimesis to the modernist era. It discusses how artists have used copying for various purposes, such as training, demonstrating stylistic innovation, or signaling influence. The paragraph also explores how copying can navigate history and create new meanings, using examples like Raphael's portrait of Pope Julius II, Velasquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X, and Picasso's reinterpretations of Las Meninas and Manet's 'Dejeuner sur l'herbe'. The concept of Appropriation art is introduced, which focuses on the representation itself and the structures of signification beneath images. The paragraph mentions artists like Jacques Goldstein, Dara Birnbaum, and Cindy Sherman, who use appropriation to draw attention to the subtexts of images and the way they influence our perceptions. It also touches on the Pop Art movement and its relationship with mass media, leading to a critique of the art market's embrace of such works as luxury objects.

10:05

🌐 The Societal Implications of Appropriation Art

The final paragraph of the script discusses the societal implications of appropriation art, contrasting it with Pop Art. It examines how appropriation art seeks to understand the psychological impact of images and their role in collective life, using Martha Rosler's 'House Beautiful--Bringing the War Home' as an example. The paragraph also discusses the concept of the 'Readymade' and how appropriation art draws attention to the value conferred by an artist's selection. It questions the value added by a signature and the historical authorization of certain individuals to create art. The paragraph references the work of Sturtevant and Sherry Levine, who challenge the notion of the original genius by making perfect copies of other artists' works. It concludes by discussing the theories of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, which argue against the authority of the author and the concept of originality, suggesting that appropriation art helps us recognize the myth of the originating genius and the power structures that influence representation in society.

Keywords

💡Appropriation Art

Appropriation Art refers to the practice of using existing artworks or cultural artifacts in new works of art. In the context of the video, it is used to discuss how artists like Sherry Levine and Richard Prince recontextualize existing images to challenge notions of originality and authorship. The video explains that appropriation art often involves copying images to signal influence, claim prestige, or critique societal structures, as seen in Levine's 'After Walker Evans' series.

💡Mimesis

Mimesis is a classical aesthetic concept that defines art as the imitation of the visible world. The video script uses this term to contrast the traditional view of art with modern practices of copying and appropriation. It is mentioned to show that artists have historically imitated both the world and each other's work to train their skills or to innovate stylistically.

💡Influence

Influence in art refers to the impact that one artist or artwork has on another. The video discusses how artists copy to signal the influence of others and to claim a particular artistic heritage. It is exemplified through the script's discussion of how Velasquez's portrait of Pope Innocent the 10th was influenced by Raphael's portrait of Pope Julius the Second.

💡Originality

Originality is the quality of being the first of its kind or the power of independent thought or action. The video challenges the concept by exploring how artists use copying as a form of artistic expression. It argues that the idea of the 'original genius' is a myth, and that originality is often a product of societal structures and power dynamics rather than individual creativity.

💡Context

Context in art refers to the circumstances or setting in which an artwork is created or interpreted. The video emphasizes that the context of pictures is integral to their meaning, and that a copy, no matter how perfect, is never the same as the original because its context is always shifting. This is illustrated by discussing how the meaning of an artwork changes when it is copied or recontextualized by another artist.

💡Authorship

Authorship in art is the concept of an individual creator being credited with the creation of an artwork. The video script challenges traditional notions of authorship by discussing how appropriation artists question the value added by an artist's signature. It is highlighted in the discussion of works by Sturtevant and Sherry Levine, who copy other artists' works to provoke thought on who is historically authorized to create art.

💡Pictorial Tradition

The pictorial tradition refers to the historical lineage of visual art and its stylistic conventions. The video suggests that some view copying in art as the 'death rattle' of this tradition, implying that it might be dying out or losing significance. However, it also argues that copying can be a way to engage with and navigate history within art.

💡Pop Art

Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by the use of imagery from popular culture. The video mentions Pop Art to discuss how artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein used mass media images to reflect the ubiquity of consumer culture. It also touches on how Pop Art blurred the lines between commodity and art.

💡Flatbed Picture Plane

The Flatbed Picture Plane is a concept introduced by art historian Leo Steinberg, referring to a way of understanding paintings as surfaces on which images are arranged, similar to a flatbed scanner. The video uses this term to describe how Pop Artists like Warhol and Rauschenberg treated their canvases, focusing on the interaction of images rather than creating an illusion of depth.

💡Representation

Representation in art is the depiction or portrayal of subjects. The video discusses how images are not neutral but are instruments that influence our perception of reality. It uses examples from Appropriation Art to show how artists manipulate representations to challenge societal structures and the way we perceive ourselves and others.

💡Cultural Significance

Cultural significance refers to the importance that a work of art holds within a particular culture or society. The video script uses this concept to discuss how the meaning of an artwork is not fixed but is part of a web of connotations and cultural associations. It is exemplified by the discussion of how an artist's choice of subject can reflect and comment on cultural values and norms.

Highlights

Walker Evans' photographs documented the American South during the Great Depression in 1936.

Sherry Levine's photographs from 1981 were reproductions of Evans' work, part of 'After Walker Evans' series.

The debate on forgery in art and what constitutes originality is introduced.

Recent art is described as being full of copying, borrowing, and visual sampling.

The concept of art as mimesis, or imitation, is discussed in the context of historical art practices.

Artists have historically copied each other's work for various reasons, including training and stylistic innovation.

Examples of artistic copying across different periods, such as Raphael, Velasquez, and Picasso, are given.

Manet's 'Old Musician' is highlighted as a composite image with numerous citations.

Appropriation art of the late 1970s is introduced, focusing on the representation itself.

The 'Pictures' exhibition curated by Donald Crimp is mentioned as a pivotal moment for Appropriation art.

Artists like Jacques Goldstein and Dara Birnbaum are cited for their work in isolating and manipulating images.

Cindy Sherman's film stills are discussed as a commentary on generic feminine personas.

The concept of the 'Flatbed Picture Plane' is introduced, relating to mass media and Pop Art.

Andy Warhol's approach to art is described, emphasizing the reproduction of popular images.

Richard Prince's perspective on copying in art is presented, focusing on the lack of authorship in advertising images.

Appropriation art is contrasted with Pop Art, with a focus on understanding the psyche and collective life.

Martha Rosler's 'House Beautiful' series is mentioned as an example of Appropriation art critiquing domestic life against war.

The significance of the artist's gesture in conferring value, akin to the 'Readymade', is discussed.

Artists like Sturtevant and Sherry Levine are highlighted for questioning the value added by a signature.

The role of the author in art is deconstructed through the lenses of Barthes and Foucault.

Appropriation art challenges the myth of the original genius and connects it to societal power structures.

The importance of context in understanding the meaning of pictures and art is emphasized.

Copying in art is recognized as a way to create fresh meanings through interaction with existing signs and symbols.

Transcripts

NARRATOR: This is a photograph by Walker Evans.

And this is a photograph by Sherry Levine.

Walker Evans' photograph dates from 1936,

when he was hired by the Farm Security Administration

to document the American South in the wake of the Great

Depression.

Sherry Levine's was taken in 1981

from a reproduction of the Evans photograph,

as part of a series titled yes, "After Walker Evans."

Credit where credit is due, but if forgery is not at issue

here, what is?

Evans' photographs are iconic and indisputable documents

of the Depression.

They show us its face.

But what exactly do Levine's photographs show us?

Recent art is full of copying of all kinds and degrees.

Art that borrows, steals, pilfers,

or poaches existing images.

Some of them iconic, others not.

Are these confessions of creative inadequacy,

bald opportunism masquerading as concept?

Are these cries for help as we drown in an image

saturated world, or the death rattle

of the great pictorial tradition?

How are we supposed to distinguish

this kind of copying from a long history of art

full of allusions, influences, and innumerable instances

of visual sampling, long before hip hop

spread the sonic version of it coast to coast.

A sample after all is just one part of a whole song.

But what if the copy is the artwork?

This is the Case for Copying.

Artists, of course, have been copying since time immemorial.

In fact, the earliest Western traditions of aesthetic thought

defined art as mimesis, or imitation of the visible world.

But artists don't just imitate the world,

they imitate each other.

Copying in order to train their hand

or demonstrate stylistic innovation.

They copy to signal the influence of other artworks,

to claim the prestige of a particular heritage,

or to rework a stock artistic subject for their own time.

Working from existing imagery and traditions

can also suggest new ways to navigate history.

Rafael's intimate portrait of Pope Julius the Second

became a model for Velasquez's portrait of Pope Innocent

the 10th, which in turn inspired Francis Bacon to make over

45 versions of his own, each portrait

transgressive in its own time for how

it exposed psychological depths of the man

at the seat of the church's power.

Velazquez's Las Meninas was also metabolized

by Pablo Picasso, who additionally

made numerous versions of "le Dejeuner sur l'herbe" painted

by Edward Manet in 1863.

Manet's "Dejeuner" in turn borrowed its composition

from a Raimondi engraving of Raphael's "Judgment

of Paris" and its subject from "Le Concert champetre."

But it's Manet's "Old Musician" that establishes him

as the modernist mix master.

Though it might look like a genre painting,

the "Old Musician" is in fact a composite image

with an extravagant number of citations.

"A painted phrase," as the art historian Carol Armstrong

called it, that reads, "'after Watteau,' 'after myself

and Murillo,' 'after Le Nain, and Velazquez,'" and so on.

Manet's painting is not a window onto another reality,

but a cluster of representations, each one

like a song that can be sampled again and again.

Manet's mashup, moreover, stares back at us.

The "Old Musician" personifies the way

that all pictures, so to speak, regard us.

Images aren't just neutral depictions of the world.

They're instruments influencing how we

perceive ourselves and others.

This awareness inspired a number of artists in the late 1970s

to make art that foregrounded representation itself.

Art historians refer to this work as Appropriation art.

In 1977, art critic Donald Crimp curated an exhibition titled,

"Pictures," bringing together artists

who shared an interest in understanding

the picture itself.

Artists of the Pictures generation,

as they came to be called, plundered existing images

for their own work.

Jacques Goldstein's film "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer"

loops the familiar MGM lion's roar,

suspending us between the pleasure of anticipation

and the frustrating deferral of the feature film.

Dara Birnbaum's technology transformation, "Wonder Woman,"

fragments and repeats clips from the TV series

to draw out the relationship between technology

and sexual objectification.

By isolating and manipulating images,

these artists direct our attention toward their subtexts

and demonstrate how they get their meanings, not

through our actual experience with lions or superheroes,

but through our associations with other pictures like them.

In her series of film stills, Cindy Sherman

photographed herself in the poses and scenarios

of generic feminine personas that evoked stock narratives,

so that each version of Sherman seems

overdetermined from the start by our expectations for her.

As Crimp wrote, "We are not in search of sources or origins

but of structures of signification--

underneath each picture, there is always another picture."

These artists certainly weren't the first to use images

from pop culture.

The aptly named Pop Art movement built

upon the work of artists including Jasper Johns

and Robert Rauschenberg, who made bronze casts of mass

produced objects or incorporated newsprint and rubbish

into their work.

Art historian Leo Steinberg described this work

as belonging to the Flatbed Picture Plane,

borrowing the term from the flatbed printing

press that had flooded the post-war world with mass media

images.

As Steinberg saw it, paintings were

no longer doorways to imaginary worlds, evoking our visual.

Experience they were like tabletops,

strewn with papers and objects, that

simulated how we look at pictures

in newspapers and magazines.

Not incidentally Andy Warhol began his career

in advertising.

Warhol explained that he chose the subjects of his paintings,

from commercial products to celebrities,

precisely because everyone already liked them.

The artist's job, so Warhol claimed,

was not to offer up new images of beauty,

but to reproduce what society had already approved.

This authorized him to appropriate images

of mass produced objects, and to turn them out in the studio

he called The Factory, blurring the distinctions

between artist and factory worker,

and between commodity and art.

In more recent years, Richard Prince,

who may sit atop the high throne of copydom,

described his interest in copying this way.

"Advertising images aren't associated with an author.

They look like they have no history to them, like they

showed up all at once.

They look like what art always wants to look like."

Yet, of course, Prince, Warhol, and other pop artists

certainly didn't fade into the woodwork.

On the contrary, a Campbell's Soup can

is almost synonymous with the name Warhol, a single blown up

cartoon frame with Roy Lichtenstein.

Pop art held up a mirror to the ubiquity of mass media.

But a mirror is often the weakest form of critique.

After all, that other thing that looks like it showed up

all at once without history, that's

the mass produced commodity.

Perhaps it's no surprise then that the art market quickly

embraced Pop Art as one more luxury object.

Appropriation art on the other hand,

had a very different relationship

to popular imagery.

More like certain strands of Dada and Surrealism,

Appropriation art sought to understand how images around us

inform our psyche and provide a basis for collective life.

Martha Rosler's "House Beautiful--

Bringing the War Home" used a technique

similar to surrealist collage, inserting photographs

from the Vietnam War into scenes of American domestic life.

Both sets of images were taken from copies of life.

Rosler just reassembled what was already bound together

in the magazine, and what only a serious threshold

for cognitive dissonance holds apart.

Appropriation art also hearkened back to the "Readymade"

by highlighting how an artist's gesture of selection

could confer value on the most mundane object.

Like the "Readymade," Appropriation

drew attention to the institutions whose operations

depend on ideas of exceptionality and originality,

even and especially in the face of total unoriginality.

Appropriations by Sturtevant, who

made perfect copies of artist's work-- in the case of Warhol,

actually borrowing his silk screens

to get the job done-- as well as those by Sherry Levine,

compel viewers to question just what kind of value

is added by a signature, and more importantly,

what kinds of people have historically

been authorized to sign works in the first place.

Hint, hint-- they've usually looked

more like Walker Evans and Duchamp

than Sherry Levine or Sturdevant.

Indeed, countless creative achievements in our museums

are considered anonymous, many of them seized from regions

and social groups that have been denied recognition

and representation.

This is to say nothing of conventionally unauthored

cultural contributions from quilts, to recipes,

to folk or blues songs.

In his essay, "The Death of the Author,"

the theorist Roland Barthes argued that writing

contains many layers of association

that can only be unified in the reader's experience of a text.

This meant that the author had no particular authority

over the meaning of a book, because anything she wrote

existed in a web of connotations and cultural significance.

To interpret a book or an artwork

was therefore not to decode it, or to identify

its definitive meaning, but to demonstrate how it functioned

in this web of significance.

Michel Foucault followed with his essay,

"What is an Author?", which argued

that an author is actually just an organizing principle that

allows us to group together a certain number

of cultural objects.

More importantly, it clarifies who

did not make the work, impeding, rather than helping along,

the free circulation and inventiveness

of creative output.

No less of a paradigm for the artistic genius

than Pablo Picasso once said, "Good artists borrow.

Great artists steal."

This is often taken to mean that great artists transform

their influences into their own authentic and original

inventions.

But Appropriation art turns this meaning on its head.

Appropriation art asks us to recognize

that so-called great artists managed to convince us

that their works are authentic and original because society

has already given them the power to be authentic and original

for reasons that have little to do with genius and a lot

to do with the structures of power that concerned

Foucault. Yes, there are people who have done amazing things

and gotten credit for it.

And we're grateful for their work.

But copying shows that the idea of the original originating

genius is a myth.

It shows that this myth is linked

to the power of images themselves

to determine what kinds of representation, visual as well

as political, are made available in our societies.

Appropriation art, while sometimes confounding and often

contested, helps us see that the context of pictures

is absolutely integral to their meaning.

It reminds us that pictures don't just have histories,

they exist in history.

A copy, no matter how perfect, is never

really the same as the original, since its context is always

shifting.

And since we exist in history, our perspective

is always shifting, too.

When artists copy, we recognize that they're

making fresh meanings through their interaction with signs

and symbols and bits of information

already out in the world.

And that this work is never done, not for them, and not

for us.

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